The
Associated Press and MTV partnered to conduct a groundbreaking study into what
makes young people happy and how they see their happiness in the future.This project included an extensive national
survey of Americans age 13 to 24 conducted by Knowledge Networks of Menlo Park,
Calif., under the direction and supervision of AP’s polling unit.

The survey
was conducted online with a sample drawn from a panel of respondents Knowledge
Networks recruited via random sampling of landline telephone households with
listed and unlisted numbers. The company provides Web access to panel recruits who
don’t already have it. With a probability basis and coverage of people who
otherwise couldn’t access the Internet, the Knowledge Networks online surveys are
nationally representative.

In all, 1,280
young people were interviewed – 618 respondents ages 13 to 17 and 662 ages 18
to 24 – from April 16 to April 23, 2007. Knowledge Networks obtained parental
consent to interview respondents under age 18.

Respondents
completed a survey with 101 questions, many of them multi-part. Past research
indicates that on sensitive measures, people may be less prone to give
“socially desirable” answers in online surveys than those with live
interviewers. The AP-MTV survey also included several open-ended questions, in
which respondents put answers in their own words. Median survey completion time
was about 25 minutes.

Results were weighted to represent
the population of 13- to 24-year-olds by demographic factors such as age, sex,
region, and education.

No more
than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause results to
vary more than plus or minus 2.7 percentage points from the answers that would
have been obtained if all 13- to 24-year olds in the U.S. were surveyed.The sampling error margin is plus or minus
3.9 percentage points for the sub-sample of 13- to 17-year-olds, 3.8 percentage
points for 18- to 24-year-olds.

There are
other, potentially greater, sources of variability in surveys, including the
wording and order of the questions.